In the sport of golf, the conventional golf tees still contain five major defects waiting to be solved all together in one piece golf tee configuration. The first one of the five defects is a loss of ball flight distance due to tees breakage resulting in loss of golf club impact energy absorption by tee braking. The second one is a ball flight reduction by ball friction against a concaved top surface of the tee which produces more unwanted ball spins, resulting in a reduction in ball flight distance. The third one is loss of ball flight direction by leaned ball to one side on a concaved top surface which produces more unwanted ball side spins, resulting in a reduction in ball flight direction. The forth one is loss of tees at the tee shot, requiring the golfer to keep spending time to find dislodged tees and a large quantity of tees is needed during one round of golf play. Lastly, golf tees must be strong enough to stand repeated use by the golfer.
The need to gain more ball flight distances from golf tees and the need to keep golf tees on the ground work in direct conflict with each other. For example, the need to anchor tees on the ground after impact requires the tees to hold the ground which absorbs club head impact energy, resulting in less energy transfer to the ball for maximum distance. On the other hand, a maximum flight distance of the ball requires the least of energy absorption due to loss of the tees.
In an attempt to overcome the breakage and loss problem a variety of tees have been suggested and produced. Although plastic tees are almost reusable, most of them are, unfortunately, ejected from the ground easily and the other are somewhat effective to stay on the ground, and their claimed anchoring abilities are limited and the worst of all, they cause a reduction in golf ball flight distance due to the impact energy absorption by the golf tee. Further reduction in ball flight distance is experienced with unwanted ball spins produced by friction and leaned ball on the concaved tee top surface.
In order to prevent reduction in ball flight distance and direction, time consumption and tee loss, and to secure repeated tee use, several anchoring devices have been suggested and developed. One of such suggested anchoring devices comprises a ball support tee and an anchoring element for tethering the ball support tee to the ground. Unfortunately, none of them are designed to solve the above mentioned five major defects all together in a simple one-piece configuration for convenience of a golfer to use time after time.
For example, see U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,645,208; 5,242,170; 5,413,348 and 7,011,586.
Another prior art U.S. Pat. No. 1,623,782 suggested the use of one or more barbs, flukes or hooks for anchoring devices. The barbs or flukes are designed not to come off by digging into the ground with their sharp edges when they are to be pulled out. The barbs resist to come off by catching the ground but is not designed to hold the ground with its wide ground holding angled fin toward incoming impact. The golf tee itself is made by metal such as aluminum with potential damages to recent titanium heads of golf clubs.
Another prior art Ortiz (US Pub. 2005/0064959) suggested the use of two anchoring fins extended out from the bottom section of round pointing tee shaft, wherein the two fins are positioned at 90 degrees perpendicular to the direction of impact and an elongated plate-shaped shaft is aligned to be flexible to deflect energy along the direction of ball impact. The anchoring fins are positioned at 90 degrees with respect to the elongated energy-deflecting plate-shaped shaft. This prior art in use may provide some form of anchoring device but anchoring ability of the tee to the ground is substantially limited, because Ortiz's elongated energy-deflecting plate-shaped shaft is aligned to the direction of the incoming impact, thus the elongated plate-shaped shaft is to lose its flexibility in the direction of coming impact and create unwanted plate shaft twist while pulling tee out of the ground. It further produces unwanted ball side spins to make a golf ball flies away from a targeted direction. As another disadvantage of Ortiz's fins, they are extended out from the bottom at a round-shaped center pointing stem which reduces the ability to hold the soil between fins due to its round shape.
Another prior art Lu (U.S. Pat. No. 7,156,758) suggested to use a cylindrical collar as power deflection device. The suggested tee comprises a separate upper portion and a separate lower portion that are axially aligned and enclosed within the flexible collar. However, this suggested anchoring device is not simple or one-piece configuration.